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Monday, September 28, 2009

Scraps: Waste Not, Want Not?

After last week's discussion about green sewing and refashioning, I've been thinking a lot about salvaging materials. And I realized that one of the things that has always bothered me about sewing is all the leftover scraps. Did you know that in the U.S. during World War II, it was actually a federal offense to throw out waste paper? I wonder if the same rules applied to waste fabric. There are so many interesting parallels between the U.S. of the 40's and today, considering that at both times our nation has been at war and there are new movements to conserve. The "Make Do and Mend" of the 40's has become the "Reuse, Reduce, Recycle" of the new millennium. But for all the similarities, there are just as many differences. With a nation so politically divided, the idea of rationing to support the war efforts seems unlikely.

As a modern gal, sometimes I think the biggest waste product in my life is fabric scraps! When I first started sewing, I read in a beginner's book that you should always save your scraps, since they might come in handy for other projects and for testing out techniques and such. I dutifully followed this advice, filling bins and bins full of odd-shaped remnants. And then I stashed them away and promptly forgot about them.

The real problem, though, is that I don't have room to store all these scraps. So now I've just started throwing scraps away after each project. I hate how this feels, though. It's so awful and depressing to see nice fabric scraps in the trash can along with grody old food scraps. Ugh.

I know there are about a gazillion small projects to make with scraps like quilts and pin cushions and necklaces and brooches and etc, etc, etc. I even found a tutorial for making thumbtacks from scraps and another for a beautiful butterfly mobile. But that's not really what I want to spend my precious sewing time on, and again, it feels like refashioning just for refashioning's sake. Another option is to try to make money off your scraps: fabric Designer Anna Maria Horner sells her scraps for $10 a bag! So I'm coming to you for advice. What do you do with your scraps?

40 comments:

I like to try and fashion scraps into some kind of accessory that will match whatever I'm working on. For instance, I'm finishing up a polka dot pencil skirt and making fabric flowers to wear in my hair right now.

I used to save every single scrap, no matter how small. After never using the smaller bits, and running out of storage, I've started trimming my scraps as I cut things out. Getting rid of the little tails, the inch wide yard long pieces, basically anything that's smaller than my hand goes. This way, I'm still saving usable sized scraps - which I do use. Last week, my sister needed to colorize some little foam balls for an art project - instead of painting them, she used a variety of red, yellow, and blue fabrics to cover the balls, and had a much more interesting looking final piece. I have a friend in interior design school who raids my fabric scraps for projects... I make little things, wallets, bags, hair flowers, etc, and use my smaller fabric bits in these. When I was younger, I remember my mom making Christmas ornaments out of fabric scraps, using red + green fabrics to cover ornament-sized balls, using some sort of quilting technique, and she sent them off to family members. If you know you're not going to use them - why not give them to someone who quilts? I'm sure you could find a quilting group in your area, and offer your scraps to them. Then your beautiful fabrics would have a second chance at life as a beautiful quilt!

Hi Gertie,I have used fabric scraps for hair accessories for ages. My mom was a home-sewer when my sister and I were kids (for better or worse, ALL of our clothes were made by mom) and she used to match hair accessories to our outfits. While I'm not doing "matchy-matchy" hair bands or barrettes any longer, I do use them for wraps, scarves, and bandless headbands (tied underneath). I love the freecycle idea. And for those of you with big enough scraps to use for scarves, etc., please feel free to let me know and I'll be happy to pay you for them :)

I used to save every little scrap too, and I'm a quilter as well as a seamstress. Now I only save "usable" scraps, and that's still a lot when usable is defined as 3x3! My 9yo daughter has permission to raid the scrap drawer for her projects. And I have been known to give larger pieces, that I know I will never use again, to my church's humanitarian aid program--where they are turned into patchwork quilts.

I do sometimes use scraps myself too, especially at Christmas when I'm trying to come up with presents for 7 nieces and nephews.

As soon as I posted, I remembered something neat - I recently found a nifty old pattern of my mom's - it was for a little barn purse with an working (Velcro) front door, and had patterns for all of the little barn animals, too. She'd made it a couple of times, for different children she knew, using fabric scraps for the animals! I started making a set for my niece, but I took a long break, as I wasn't accustomed to hand-sewing at the time.... When I was little, I would use my mom's fabric scraps to make barbie clothes. If you know any children who are crafty - maybe give them a bag of fabric scraps all their own, it's a great way to start a love for making things.

Maybe you could give them to a school in your area. They are mostly very happy with scraps etc.

I use them sometimes, for little details in my sewing (like facings) or little projects with/for my children. But other than that I'm just like the rest of us here: I'm collecting lots and lots of scraps and those scraps on their turn collect lots and lots of dust ;-) I guess I should follow my own advice and some of it to our little ones' school.

I give mine to my son's elementary school, maybe there's one near you that would like them? They use them for art projects, it was quite funny to see the Christmas cards lined up last year with scarves made out of scraps from things I'd made myself or my sons!

Freecycle is another good one, before my son was in school I would offer up bags there. You'll be amazed how people will want to take it off your hands!

forgot to say, I don't save anything that isn't big enough to line a bag with or the occasional piece of cotton big enough for quilt pieces, but that's very occasionaly. I know myself well enough to know that I will never use them and I have such a tiny sewing room that storage for anything that I don't have a use for is out!

i too used to save every scrap, but had to come to terms with the fact that it's just not practical. now i only save scraps that are of decent size and shape. i make sunhats with them and various other projects. and they are handy to have around for gifts (sachets, pincushions, applique t-shirts)!you might also see if a local quilting group would take them...

I have been in the same pickle jar. I usually save larger pieces for doll clothes for my dd, who is 6. But when the bin is full, we truck off what we don't like to a group of ladies that make quilts for charity or send them to the local thrift store. As much as I would like to make a couple of scrap quilts, my sewing time is just as precious and I prefer to make garments.

I throw them out. I'd love to be so organized as to tuck them away neatly somewhere (and later remember both that I have them AND where they are), but the reality is that my sewing space consists of the kitchen table with about half a closet to store all of my supplies. So I say NO! to scraps. Sorry.

If you're not interested in using it, then don't feel bad about not keeping it. Give it away. Obviously, others have mentioned good ideas of who to give it to. I bet there are plenty of crafty folks in New York trying to make it through the recession who would love your scraps.

Also, particularly fun fabrics could make great surprising pocket linings and bias tape, if you have enough.

Of course it's awful to see your fabric scraps in the trash with all the grody food scraps...those food scraps are supposed to be in your compost bin/bucket. ;-)

Actually, you can compost natural fiber fabrics pretty easily, too. Another reason not to sew with synthetics, I suppose.

But for the record, I mostly throw mine out, pretty much for the same reasons Erin gave above, and because my elderly in-laws are packrats. I do not want to leave a huge house (and garage and shed and storage units) full of...well, it's basically crap...for my kids to dispose of (as I anticipate we will have to do when they're gone).

Well, the local school art teacher would love to have your scraps as would the local Girl Scout office. I save my scraps because I am a quilter, too. I have several baskets of scraps in my sewing room. I hope you won't have the same experience as I did. You see my kitty loves me and when I leave for a vacation, she lets me know just how '-issed off' she is by not using her litter box. Sometimes she uses the plant containers, the corner of the living room rug, etc. The last time I left for an extended vacation, she left her disapproval marks in my scrap baskets! Needless to say I now have fewer baskets of scraps and the door to my sewing room is forever closed at all times!

BOY do I have a lot of scrap fabric. I try to make bags, book covers and other items. If the fabric is cotton or a natural fabric I will try to cut them up into 3.5 and 1.5 inch squares, 3.5 inches triangles. When I have time I'll make quilt blocks. But there are times when I have to throw them out because I have way too much and I will never use them all. But then the process start over. Reading the other comments have given me some ideas. I really hate to throw scraps out.

I like the idea of using scraps for making matching accessories, such as hair acccessories (these ones are so forties!), that's the reason why I keep mine. I mean to use them when I have more time, but well, I've got some half-finished hair curlers that are waiting in my sewing bag since last spring!

I give a ton of little scraps away on Freecycle. Quilters and arts-n-crafts teachers typically pick them up. I also use them for bias tape, and facings or other reinforcements. And in our drafty apartment, I've stuffed a couple of long skinny draft stopping things with teeny scraps too.

I've only been sewing for a year, and I'm quite overwhelmed by the amount of fabric scrap I have accumulated. I never even thought of throwing them out, because I remember my grandmother used to make bed covers by sewing little cercles together. I'd like to do the same, but I already have trouble finding time to sew stuff I like, I don't think I'll ever be able to find time for this, and when I do, I'll have so much scrap that I won't be able to enter my sewing room anymore!!! So after reading all the comments here, I have decided to find someplace to donate my scrap. Or I might use the unusable tiny pieces for stuffing, I have a lot of those!, which I keep separate from the larger pieces. I'm glad I found this blog, and read all those comments.

I'm primarily a quilter, so I hoard any 100% cotton scraps for scrap quilts. I have a bit more trouble figuring out what to do with the left-overs from garment sewing. Besides baby clothes, I suppose one could make dolls and doll clothes.

I concur with the FreeCycle idea! I am an absolute fabric hoarder. When I trim scraps to get rid of the tails, I have to stop myself from going back and picking them out of the waste basket. And since I've been sewing (and hoarding) for over 40 years I have accumulated a LOT of scraps. The last time I purged was about 20 years ago when we moved to this house. Our house has a *huge* amount of storage space, so my scraps accumulated beyond all reasonable belief. When Freecycle came to town, I decided I would give it a try, thinking that no one would want what I had since not much was cottons suitable for quilting. I immediately received a response and I wrote back to ask the person what kind of scraps she wanted because I had a lot and could sort them suitable for doll clothes etc. She said "I'll take all of them!" I wrote back "no, seriously, I have an insane amount of scraps" She told me she wanted all of it no matter how much. When I finally pulled them from here, there and everywhere (I put in some fabrics I knew I would never use in addition to the scraps). I ended up with 9+ trash bags!! After she picked them up, she emailed me back to say what fun she and her mother had sorting through the fabrics. She found lots of usable pieces, her Mom also enjoyed and took quite a lot of them, and then she shared the rest with her homeschool coop group. That is a group of parents that band together to share resources. Apparently they were doing a sewing unit with the high school aged students and many of the kids couldn't afford to purchase fabrics for that. I was very happy to know that the fabrics were used. So if anyone has a large volume of scraps, that is a great way to see them used up. I had a warm and fuzzy feeling for a long time after that!

I save the bigger ones. And right now, because I'm going to be making a doll-sized quilt for my niece in the next few months, are at least 1.5 X 1.5. Small, I know, but I can make a doll sized nine patch out of that size easily for Evie's dolly cradle.

Oh, scraps, how I love thee! I can't believe people could just throw them away! Horrifying!Over the course of my lifetime, I've made good use of even very itty-bitty fabric scraps. When I was 6, I made a quilt for my Barbies; when I had a cat, I used up yarn scraps to crochet her a cat toy and stuffed it with catnip and fabric scraps; when I made myself a dorky/adorable/warm hooded vest, I appliqued a stripe on the hood with a long, skinny scrap. Sometimes when I spin yarn, I shred tiny bits of fabric and spin the fibers in. I also do a lot of writing, and I like to buy those cheap-and-ugly blank books from surplus/job lot places and just collage scraps of fabric and paper onto the covers.

With the leftovers from my sewing, first I made shorts or shortie pajama bottoms. Then anything else usually makes bags and totes from the larger pieces and you can go pretty small with bags. small bags of corduroy or velvet make good jewelry bags for each individual necklace or bracelet. Gift bags also. pajama flannel for small toys. Or small bags can hold toiletries to pack in the car for use with small children. I always have a few in my diaper changing bag or the bag I carry with dishes and spoons for meals out at restaurants.

I save ALL of my scraps. I use the small scraps that are no good for sewing as stuffing. If you do this though, don't stuff anything white with colored scraps, alot of times you can see through the white fabric. I've done a lot of things with scraps, I have made yo yos and flowers to embellish clothing, flowers for hair clips or embellishments on bags. I recently made a checkbook cover, change purse and phone holder from scraps as well.